Crime & Safety

Drew Peterson's Cop Kid Bids to Win Back Badge

Fired last month, the Oak Brook police officer son of accused wife-killer Drew Peterson has filed to appeal his termination.

The lawyer for Drew Peterson's Oak Brook cop son has filed papers in DuPage County Circuit Court in a bid to get his badge back.

The attorney, Tamara Cummings, put the blame for the firing of Peterson's son Stephen Peterson on Oak Brook Police Chief Thomas Sheahan.

Cummings, the general counsel for the Fraternal Order of Police, called Sheahan's actions "vindictive, retaliatory, unfounded, excessive and part of a pattern of harassment" in the complaint for administrative review she filed Friday.

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Sheahan had been trying to fire Stephen Peterson since August, when he put the patrol officer on paid suspension pending the outcome of the disciplinary process.

Sheahan finally rid his force of Stephen Peterson last month when the Oak Brook Fire and Police Commission voted unanimously to sack him.

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Sheahan had charged Stephen Peterson with obstructing investigators, possession of an unlawful weapon, and failing to keep an internal investigation confidential. The board cleared Stephen Peterson of the last two allegations but found him guilty of the first one.

According to the commission, Stephen Peterson obstructed law enforcement officials by stashing three of his father's guns before the state police could execute a search warrant at Drew Peterson's house, and for neglecting to mention to state agents that he had accepted nearly a quarter million dollars from his father. Drew Peterson feared he would be arrested and gave the money to his son with instructions to use it if that happened, according to the commission.

Stephen Peterson took his father's guns and money in November 2007, soon after the disappearance of Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

After the commission announced its decision to fire Stephen Peterson, Cummings called it a "kangaroo court." On Friday, she spoke of her eagerness to get the case out of Oak Brook's hands and into DuPage County court.

"We're looking forward to the opportunity to have a fair tribunal hear this matter," she said.

Cummings' complaint took aim at Sheahan, accusing him of bias and harassment against Stephen Peterson, and also targeted the three members of the commission, calling the punishment they meted out "contrary to the evidence, excessive, politically motivated, unjust" and beyond the scope of its authority.

Stephen Peterson admitted to stashing three of his father's firearms prior to the state police arriving at Drew Peterson's home with a search warrant. He said his father did not want the state police to get the guns because they were a few of his "favorites."

The state police were poking around in Drew Peterson's Bolingbrook home with a warrant in hopes of finding some sign of the vanished Stacy Peterson, who remains missing.

The state police publicly stated they suspect Drew Peterson, who was a Bolingbrook police sergeant for nearly 30 years, may have had a hand in killing his much younger fourth wife but have yet to charge him with harming her.

The state police did charge Peterson with murder in May 2009. He was jailed in connection with the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found drowned in a dry bathtub more than five years earlier.

At the time of Savio's death all the way until Stacy Peterson's disappearance more than three and a half years later, the state police insisted she was the victim of a freak bathtub accident.

But within weeks of Stacy Peterson vanishing, the state police declared that Savio was slain and her killing covered up to appear accidental.

Drew Peterson has been in the custody of the county jail since his arrest while he awaits trial on the murder charges.


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